Extra! Extra! 9/3 🥂
Hi, all, and happy Sunday!
Also, happy Labor Day weekend.
I know it’s been a tough week—it feels like every week is tough these days. But two things can be true at once, and while the week contained the usual assortment of awfulness, it also contained a ton of important victories. While it’s easy to focus only on our problems, it’s critically important that we also take time to contemplate and celebrate the remarkable number of wins we’re scoring. So let’s do that!
Once you’ve read all about the progress we’re making please share this email with a friend who needs a lift. It’s important that we get out the good news, and by sharing it we’ll feel better too.
Thanks, all!
Jess
P.S. —If someone forwarded you this newsletter and you like reading—and making—good news please consider subscribing. Lists like the below are only possible because folks like you got busy and helped. Join us! If you can swing a paid subscription I’d be especially grateful.
Read This 📖
This brief essay contains a bittersweet but also beautiful and life affirming message.
Celebrate This! 🎉
Aptera Motors announced a new solar/electric car that can travel up to 1,000 miles on a single charge.
Judge Tanya S. Chutkan rejected efforts by Trump’s legal team to postpone his trial until 2026.
Scientists have discovered an actual octopuses’ garden. 🐙
A Missouri judge ruled that the 84-year-old white homeowner who shot Ralph Yarl after he mistakenly went to the man’s house must stand trial.
Ron DeSantis got heckled, deservedly.
Leasing an EV is now the cheapest option for new car buyers across the US – thousands of dollars cheaper per year than buying or leasing a gasoline-powered vehicle.
The Stockbridge-Munsee Band of Mohicans announced plans to buy back some of its original land in the Berkshires using a $2.26 million state grant intended to help communities prepare for climate change.
Scientists have engineered microbes to make the ingredients for recyclable plastics – replacing finite, polluting petrochemicals with sustainable alternatives.
In Colorado, abortion rights advocates plan to push for a pro-choice ballot measure in order to end the state’s ban on public funds for abortion care.
The Biden-Harris Administration announced the first ten drugs selected for Medicare price negotiation.
A federal judge has found Rudy Giuliani liable for defaming two Georgia election workers who he falsely accused of tampering with the 2020 election results. 🙌🏼
A Palm Beach County attorney has filed suit in the Southern District of Florida to disqualify Trump from running for President under the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
California’s attorney general has filed a lawsuit against Chino Valley Unified School District over its new “forced outing” policy. Good.
China has seen a 42% reduction in pollution over the past decade, resulting in an average lifespan increase of 2.2 years for its citizens.
Eight states across the U.S. will be providing free meals for all kids in school this school year. Joining California and Maine, Minnesota, New Mexico, Colorado, Vermont, Michigan, and Massachusetts are making meals permanently free starting this year. 🧒
A new Arizona law will give all 911 operators in the state unlimited access to mental health services. In signing the bill, the governor said that operators “can experience extremely traumatic situations that they take home with them” and need the support.
New research found that coral reefs in one part of the Pacific Ocean have shown a historic increase in climate resistance. The reefs’ adjustment to higher ocean temperatures could reduce future bleaching impacts of climate change.
A new Navigator Research Poll shows that book bans, anti-trans school sports policies, and Don't Say Gay bills are wildly unpopular with voters across parties.
A Trump-nominated U.S. District Judge issued a sentence of 30 months — six months more than requested by the Justice Department—to a Trump supporter who’d made death threats against an Arizona elected official in 2020.
Mitt Romney accused fellow Republicans of hypocrisy by threatening a government shutdown to force spending cuts after being “quiet as little lambs” about spending when former President Trump was in office.
A new survey from Gallup finds that 67% of adults approve of labor unions. This marks the fifth straight year this reading has exceeded its long-term average of 62%.
Lawyers representing failed Republican candidates Kari Lake, Abe Hamadeh and Mark Finchem have now all been sanctioned for their legal efforts to overturn the results of Arizona's 2022 elections for governor, attorney general and secretary of state, respectively.
Joseph Biggs, a former leader of the Proud Boys, was sentenced to 17 years in prison for his participation in the planning of the January 6th attacks.
Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp is rejecting calls to discipline or remove Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis from her position following the fourth indictment of former President Donald Trump.
The Biden administration proposed a new rule that would make 3.6 million more U.S. workers eligible for overtime pay, the most generous such increase in decades.
Thanks to reintroduction efforts, a pair of ospreys has successfully bred in Ireland for the first time in 200 years.
Voters in Iowa’s Warren County voted to remove their recently-appointed county auditor who had shared false conspiracy theories about the 9/11 terrorist attacks, QAnon, and the 2020 presidential election. They replaced him with the Democratic deputy auditor he had placed on leave after she declared her candidacy against him.
A federal judge ruled that Peter Navarro, who is facing contempt of Congress charges, cannot argue that former President Trump barred him from testifying to the Jan. 6 committee by asserting executive privilege.
Electric car sales have passed a crucial tipping point in 23 countries.
The Biden administration announced an additional $2.5 billion in climate resilience funds for the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
Massachusetts will provide free community college to residents over the age of 25.
Indya Kincannon secured a new term as mayor of Knoxville on Tuesday, eight months after drawing heated attacks from Fox News and other conservatives for promoting a drag show.
Another Trump supporter, this one an Alabama State Representative, was arrested on charges of committing voter fraud.
A federal judge in Travis County, Texas ruled that a sweeping new Texas law aimed at undermining the ability of the state’s bluer urban areas to enact progressive policies is unconstitutional.
With two more cases being announced this week, a specialized task force at the DOJ has now brought charges against 14 people who’ve threatened election officials.
The United States added 187,000 jobs in August.
Mauritson Farms in Sonoma County will pay $328,077 to 21 of its former workers as part of a settlement with the California Agricultural Labor Relations Board. ALRB officials determined that Mauritson Farms retaliated against an entire crew of former employees because some of them organized at the end of the 2021 growing season to speak out against unsafe working conditions in Mauritson’s vineyards.
Using climate incentives from the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, a new renewable energy company is revamping a former steel mill in West Virginia and creating an estimated 750 new jobs.
The Biden administration announced more than $450 million in new funding to combat the overdose epidemic.
Workers at a Dunkin’ restaurant in Cincinnati filed for a union election with the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers’ International Union. The push is the first union drive to reach the petition stage at Dunkin’ in more than 12 years.
Illinois’ Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D) vetoed a bill that would have given an electric utility company a dangerous monopoly on the construction of new electric transmission lines.1
Five late-night talk show hosts are uniting for a podcast that will financially benefit their employees who have been affected by the Hollywood writers strike.
President Biden announced that the Department of Energy will provide $95 million to harden Hawaii's electric grid, improve service, limit damage during future events, and help prevent failures in the future that could lead to severe events.
Starting this week, any new dresser, chest or clothing storage furniture to be sold in the U.S. must meet strong stability standards – and come with an anchoring kit – to prevent deadly furniture tip-overs that have killed at least 200 children in the past decade. This is a result of new legislation called The STURDY Act, which took advocates a decade to pass.
Five anti-abortion activists, including one who was found to have kept five fetuses in her home last year, were found guilty of federal civil rights offenses on Tuesday after blocking access to an abortion clinic in Washington, D.C., in 2020.
The HHS recommended that the DEA significantly loosen federal restrictions on marijuana. The health agency wants the drug moved from Schedule I to Schedule III under the CSA, potentially the biggest change in federal drug policy in decades.
In Ohio, five original ballot measure petitioners and Ohioans United for Reproductive Rights have filed a lawsuit with the state Supreme Court challenging the altered, bogus language of the abortion rights ballot initiative.
The Biden administration canceled $72 million in student loans for 2,300 borrowers who were cheated by Ashford University, a former for-profit college that was purchased by the University of Arizona in 2020.
This fall, Mississippi will elect its very first openly gay state lawmaker. Fabian Nelson won a Democratic primary runoff election this past Tuesday for House District 66, a heavily blue seat where Republicans failed to field a candidate.
Two more members of the Proud Boys were sentenced to lengthy prison terms Friday, with one of the group’s leaders receiving an 18-year sentence for seditious conspiracy, the longest term for a Proud Boys member so far and equal to the longest Jan. 6 sentence yet imposed.
California made history this week as the largest global economy to endorse the call for a Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty! Woot!
A U.S. District Judge barred the Blount County, Tennessee prosecutor and law enforcement in the county from enforcing the state’s new anti-drag law in advance of this weekend’s Blount Pride. 🏳️🌈
HHS announced important new steps to crack down on nursing homes that endanger resident safety.
The Biden administration proposed a rule that would require thousands more firearms dealers to run background checks in an effort to combat rising gun violence nationwide.
Democrat Brandon Presley, the Mississippi dark horse gubernatorial candidate, is hitting Republican incumbent Tate Reeves hard on corruption in new ads.
US National Park visits and spending reached record highs last year, supporting 378,400 jobs and local communities while showcasing our planet’s natural beauty.
The U.S. Department of Energy will provide $15 billion to legacy automakers to retrofit existing car factories to make electric vehicles.
Consumers may soon see some of the $8.8 billion that was allocated from the Inflation Reduction Act for home energy-efficiency rebates for low- and moderate-income households. Residential energy use accounts for one-fifth of greenhouse gas emissions in the United States.
Kentucky’s utility regulator has denied millions of dollars in electricity discounts offered by utility Kentucky Power to support a massive cryptocurrency mining operation in Eastern Kentucky.
Watch This! 👀
A queer indie musician’s song, about the “joys of being different,” has gone viral on TikTok and the performer and their partner have now netted a children’s book deal. Read this and then watch the below. So sweet.
Wow. Holy cow wow. This one was epic, Jess. Sharing big time.
Your list of accomplishments make my day! Lifts me up every time! Beings me so much hope that we are making progress! Thank you so much!!! ❤️